Hello and some questions

[roger_1948]

A big greeting to my fellow students.  Just joined and after reading some of the posts on these forums I think that this is going to be educational and fun. 

First about me  . 62 years old. Retired four years ago from a long career in the military as a gunnery sgt , and then a number of years in law enforcment. My chief jobs now are teaching my grandchildren how to hunt and fish, spending time with my dear wife after decades of never having enough time together, and of course ( which is the reason im posting here) learning to play the piano to express my love of Music. 

I have been learning the Piano now for 3 and 1/2 years. I have a lovely young women as a teacher 30 years my junior. My completed repertoire includes all of the Bach two part inventions, Clementi op 36 - complete, Bach wtc  - prelude and  fugue in C, plus other small compositions which I wont mention here. 

I am currently working on a Haydn Sonata - hob 49 in e flat, Schubert impromptu OP 90 #1, and Bach wtc prelude and fugue in C Minor.   I practice 3 hours per day like clock work .

That pretty well sums me up. 

Now my questions.

First question is mostly to the adults ( defined as anyone over 13 for this purpose.)

I noticed that Children seem to do better than adults in acquiring technique if they put in the same work as adults.  I asked myself why and while I came up with lots of reasons, most of which I couldnt control, I did notice one huge difference between Children and most adults . Adults tend to have strong opinions and Idea's. Children mostly do what there told and dont question it.  So I decided when I started that was exactly what I was going to do. Actually it wasnt to hard after a career as a gunnery sgt. following orders. Bottom line is my teacher says jump and I ask how hi.  No matter what I think, I do as im told.  When we first started I told her what I wanted and ever since have trusted her to do whats best for me.

So the question is if your an adult student do you do as your told or do you  follow your own lead, perhaps fool around with pieces your not ready for. 

Second question. I have decided to make the big leap and by myself a nice piano. So far I have been practicing on a Yamaha Clavinova. ( like playing with headphones so I dont have to disturb the wife with my banging.) At my Teachers I get to play on her very Nice Kwai Grand.  Well im having a studio room added to the house and have decided on one of two instruments
and was wondering if any one had any comments on these instruments as to which I should purchase.

Yamaha C7 Seven feet 4 inches
Steinway  M  - five foot 7 inches

Thanks all. I can be a bit long winded but I mean well .Hope in the future we can all learn from each other .

Semper fi, Roger 

[lostinidlewonder]

Greetings Roger,

Teaching children vs adults is a very particular interest of mine. Your discipline at the piano is to be admired and you would knock the socks of most of the youngsters no matter what talent. Most children simply cannot practice daily because they have no personal motivation to do so, most children treat playing music as a type of complicated game and only usually practice to satisfy their parents/teacher. If you can apply yourself every day without failure then you can only eventually win, discipline is the number one driving force behind all successful people.

I like your repertoire that you have learned, very good music to develop with and you have done quite a lot in a short period of time, it is certainly a result of your consistent effort.

Children tend to memorize music more readily and accept what their hands do without thinking too much compared to adults. Adults have preconceived ideas, they take notice of where they are every single baby step of the way to the solution, generally a child does not take note of their progress as closely. Children tend to have less conscious thought attached to their muscular and sound memory while playing where adults tend to think a lot more about what they are doing while they are doing it.

Adults however have experience in many life skills which aid their piano learning and easily trumps the child's natural ability to accept music. A child also is learning new muscular memory actions outside of the piano world constantly as well. Things like opening a door, riding a bike, learning to write with a pen etc, their brains are constantly absorbing new muscular movements all the time, thus when they go into piano the brain tends to accept all these new movements without too much direct thought. Their brains at an early stage are a clean slate and has plenty of room to add new muscular movements. It would not hurt for the adult student to learn new muscular movements outside of piano to get the brain cogs turning.

The adult also has a huge amount of space in their brains to learn new muscular movements however sometimes because you have existed for so long without having to learn any new muscular movements your brain can be rusty and not want to learn them without a lot of effort. It does not however effect you if you have a disciplined approach to your work, eventually the brain gets on board with constant efforts (like you say you do 3 hours a day every day which is a absolutely fantastic habit!).

Probably the hardest thing to teach an adult is coordination. I have taught some adult students in their mid 60s who could not even tap twice with one hand vs once in the other. Some cant even pat their head and rub their stomach and then switch. These issues are terribly difficult to instill if the adult student has no concept. The same applies for rhythm and beat, very easy to teach children but if the adult has no idea about this it is a very difficult struggle.

I find when teaching adults I am explaining a great deal more in their own logical terms where children merely accept. I think an adult needs to learn when to merely accept and when to think. One thing about learning piano is that you cannot control everything you do, you cannot force your brain to memorize a passage if it doesn't want to (even if you apply countless hours and try to force it you may make some grounds but it is inefficient). Adults like to think that everything can be measured and controlled, the paradox is that sometimes not trying to control an issue and merely accepting you will improve, can act as a catalyst to the improvement of your overall pianistic development. Learning to move on when something is not completely perfected is something that most adults have a tough time trying to do, it is sometimes so much instilled in them that some sub-optimal teachers will encourage students to master each step of the way before moving on, it is simply an inefficient approach.

I think there is nothing wrong with fooling around with pieces you are not ready for, in fact it is very important that you do extend yourself now and then but do not make this type of study your main focus. You should always do something out of your range, it is like the baseball player who swings multiple bats (or an ultra heavy bat) before going up to bat. In music there are many instances where we can swing these multiple bats before going back to our standard stuff, application in improving sight reading especially enjoys this type of study. When attempting pieces which demand technique from you that you have little or no experience with, try not to waste time perfecting these things, merely categorize and take not of what the technique is, notice what is most difficult for you and then move on, do not try to force it into improvement it will slow you down. You only labor hard and long with your difficulties in pieces you have been set and treat everything else as a long term goal and something to catalog.



With regards to the instruments, I really like larger grands as opposed to the smaller ones, however the Steinway is larger than a baby grand. I would NEVER buy a baby grand no matter what brand or quality, they are simply in my mind a waste of money because the length of the strings are no different to the upright, baby grand are merely to look pretty! Are you considering buying the instrument new? Personally I would NEVER buy a new Steinway, the prices are just too inflated. But it depends on the time you have, if you have time to search for a 2nd hand deal I would suggest doing it. I always search for good deals and I have offered a 9ft Steinway model D for little under 70grand as opposed to the 150+ k that you might pay for it new. Invest in a qualified piano technician to appraise all good pianos you are interested in, I have had technicians from other state look at pianos that I couldn't get to and purchased grands this way a few times never with any problems. Of course if money is no problems then don't waste your time, but for me at least there is much more satisfaction finding the right piano yourself rather than making some piano salesman very rich.

Hope you enjoy yourself here at pianostreet!

[jimbo320]

Hey Roger,
Congrats on making it to retirement through two difficult fields of endeavor.
To answer your second question first, I'm big on Yamaha so for me the choice is easy. The C7 is an excellent choice. I play a PSR. Steinway is good too. It comes down to preference of feel and sound.
As far as your question about children advancing faster, that's because of less time not using all fingers. The older we get, the longer we've gone through life not using the 4th and 5th fingers so agility is lost. This can be overcome by simple things like using your 5th finger instead of your 2nd to push buttons. Use your 4th to pull a trigger. And so on, you get the idea.
A teacher opens the door, but you walk through it....


Musically, Jimbo
 

[becky8898]

Hey Welcome Roger.  Nice to have you.  Sounds like you have your act together pretty well.  Im only 12 but Ill answer your question about Kids and Adults anyway. I hardly ever do what my teacher tells me to do willingly. Where always fighting. So im not sure if your idea about kids doing what there told is valid.  All I know is that by the time I was 8 after 3 years of lessons I could play my scales with the metronome set to 160 with complete control hands together. I could play almost any Mozart Sonata and several of his concerto's and could memorize a new Sonata in less than a week.  Why  - havent got a clue.  seems perfectly natural to me. Anyway hope you find your answer. 

As far as the instrument goes - if it was me I would go for the Yamaha. What a great instrument. I practice on a C3 and just love it. 


Welcome again.

Cheers , Becky

[jimbo320]

Two votes for the Yamaha so far, WAOOO! hahaha
I have a PSR and have played a C7 and C5. Call me crazy but when I was playing the C5 I closed my eyes and it seemed like I was tickling an acoustic grand.

[brogers70]

Hello Gunny, and Welcome,

Sounds like you are doing great. I also started late in life, 40 (I'm 52 now), practice a lot, and seem to like the same sort of music you do. In fact I've been doing the Schubert Impromptus, 90/1, 90/2, and 90/4 - 90/3 is still a bit too hard for me, and some of the preludes and fugues from WTC, c minor, d minor, D major, Eb major, some Haydn and Mozart sonatas.

Unfortunately I've been based overseas for 10 years in tropical places with lots of malaria (that's my field) but without many piano teachers, so I've only rarely had a good teacher to help. I think that adults have some advantages over kids. We are doing this because we love it and have a really clear goal and we can practice 2-4 hours a day happily (until it drives our spouse up a wall). We are patient and can set a distant goal, break down the milestones and work towards it. Because I have not always had excellent teachers I sometimes do have to do things differently than they suggest, and often I find that in the first few lessons with a new teacher I learn many useful things, but then they get sort of tapped out and the lessons become less valuable over time.

Things that I've found difficult that I think would be easier if I were younger are (1) sustained trills and tremolo and (2) getting an intuitive feel of where all the notes are on the keyboard so that I do not need to look at my hands so much. These are things that can be worked on, but I think they come faster to kids.

If you are new here, I'd suggest looking at posts by a guy named Bernhard, who used to post here a lot - he gave lots of good advice on how to practice and how to build repertoire; there are lots of links at

https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php/topic,5767.0.html,

so you can try looking there.

I'm jealous of your upcoming new piano. When I finally retire and get back to the states I also want to switch to a grand piano. In the meanwhile, having an electronic piano that I can take from country to country and that always stays in tune regardless of heat or humidity is OK.

One final advantage we have over many of even the most motivated teenagers is that we have nothing to prove - we don't have to learn the Chopin or Liszt etudes, we don't have to make piano playing an extreme sport, we don't have to get into a conservatory. There's lots of great music that's in range.

All the best,

Bill

[roger_1948]

Thanks for your replies. I have decided to get the Yamaha. Two more things occured to me about starting piano as a child compared to an adult. First is that most of us are either righty or lefty and as a result one of our hands tends to get neglected. For an adult that can mean 30 or more years of never really developing any coordination in one had or the other.  A child who say starts lessons at 5 hasnt had decades to ignore one hand and use the other for almost everything.  Second is young children are in the process of learning and memorizing things every day of there lives. Most adults it seems have such a full file cabinet in there brains that the whole process of learning new things seems to take forever. 

Thanks again for the replies.

Roger

[jimbo320]

Roger,
If you can, get a Yamaha C5. I played one and the feel and sound was so much like an acoustic grand it really amazed me. Let me know which one you choose....

Musically, Jimbo